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What is ELO hell?

It is a term describing that once you hit low ELO in solo ranked games (Might apply slightly to normal games as well, but you can't see your ELO there), it's very hard and frustrating to get out of because of continuous feeders, AFKers and leavers.

So wouldn't that be once you hit a high enough ELO? The way I was told ELO works is the higher your score is, the more low scored people you are paired with to even out the ELO to make it even with the other team.

The idea is that your ELO gets so low that you're only paired with terrible people and you'll never win to get your ELO back up to the level you believe you should be at. In many people's opinion, this doesn't exist and it's a convenient excuse to blame others for your lack of skill. Others say it's a real effect, a negative feedback loop.

I'll let you know my opinion when I hit 30 and start playing ranked games.

I see, doesn't seem real since you would only get paired against other low ELO people. Thanks for the clear up.

The basis of this whole Elo hell thing is that in the Elo ranking system everyone starts with the same rank (1200). At this level there are incredibly huge real skill differences. For example:

- Someone who played tons of Normal games (like 1500 with 2000+ normal game Elo) just started playing ranked games and his Elo is 1200.
- Someone with 100 played ranked match with 50/50 win/loss has 1200 Elo.
- A fresh level 30 guy with about 150 played games also starts with 1200 Elo.

There can be a huge gap between the above three guys' true skill, but the matchmaking can (and will) put them in the same match. So THEORITCALLY (!!!) Elo hell can exist, because a very high profile player at rank 1200 can be matched up with total newbies over and over an over again, while the opponent's team has better (but also ranked 1100-1300) players in it. Which will cause the said player's rank to fall deep into the Elo hell.

Once someone in lower ranked games (like 1000-), there is a higher chance to get a leaver or an afk-er in his team (according to many forum posts), which makes it even harder and slower to climb out of that Elo bracket. The other thing that slows down the process is that when you first play ranked games you gain/lose many rank points (like 30ish) but after a few matches you gain less and less. So if you unlucky with your first placement matches, you can fall down to 900 Elo with 15-20 played matches, but to climb out you have to win 30-40 matches.

But as I said this is just a theory. Many higher and mid Elo players proved that they can climb up in the ladder even from 900- Elo to 1400+ Elo with ease. So if someone says he is in Elo hell he is probably

a) a bad player who deserves to be there
b) an incredibly unlucky person

i thought it was just a status thing and never minded losing but if thats the case i would get worried, might i climb back up by playing premades? well with better people duh, and if i'm good as claimed, get back to where i belong? i dont really get this elo thing

There is no such thing as ELO hell. It's just something people say when they lose a lot.

Pretty much this. There is a reason the same people who were at the top before season one are at the top now (and got there in fairly short order). People have done stochastic modeling, explored the basic statistics behind the system, and even used simple logic to try to figure out how it works, and everything points to there being no "Elo hell" once you get past anecdotal "I had a feeder 5 times this week and would be SOOOOO much higher if they weren't there" type reasoning.

There is a drawback to the Elo system, and it is that it can take a LOT of games to get you zeroed in on your true Elo, especially if you are not really good/bad, but more towards average (since you then will not tend to win/lose as many games by yourself). In additional, the constant introduction of new players at 1200 Elo at ranked creates constant turmoil at that level. But neither of these are generally what people are talking about when they say Elo hell.